


Different Now

by AetherAria



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Established Relationship, I don't know how to tag this, Lizard Kissin' Tuesday (Penumbra Podcast), Multi, Prompt Fill, Second Citadel (Penumbra Podcast), but the lizard used to be VERY LONELY y'all!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-17
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2020-10-20 12:48:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20675636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AetherAria/pseuds/AetherAria
Summary: Damien realizes, with some distress, just how alone Arum and the Keep used to be.





	Different Now

**Author's Note:**

> For bluerayofsunshine on tumblr, for the sentence prompt, “I don’t hold people close. It makes it easier for them to hurt you.” Oof. Thank you sweetie! I really love how this one came out.

“Really? Not even once?”

Arum frowns, not looking at Damien as he carefully, _carefully_ prunes the fronds of a serrated palm that has been growing unnoticed and unruly in a corner of the greenhouse for the better part of a month. “Honeysuckle, the Keep is not meant to house company, precisely. Nor am I meant to desire it.”

“But-”

“I was created for the sole purpose of being the caretaker for my Keep, and the swamp into which it breathes life and magic. I was not built to desire affection or coupling or- _romance_, however you want to term it."

“Surely, though,” Damien says, voice wavering with poorly concealed distress, “surely a happy caretaker is a more effective caretaker. And you are-” he pauses, and Arum can practically hear him shuffling through potential phrasings in his head for a moment before he settles on, “quite singularly alluring. I find it hard to imagine that there was truly no one before-”

“It isn’t as if I have been deathly alone my entire life, honeysuckle. I maintained a limited number of friendships in my youth, and I have plenty of professional contacts, and there have been a number of physical-” he rolls his eyes, “_encounters_ with other monsters, but a _relationship_, such as it were, was never on my list of priorities.”

“Oh.”

Arum’s eyes dart to Damien automatically at the soft hurt in his tone, and then he hisses as his split focus punishes him with a small cut on his thumb from his unruly subject. He scowls down at the palm, then steps back to leave the thing to its business. He’ll finish pruning later, when his poet’s mind has been soothed.

When he turns fully towards Damien, he’s already coming closer, pulling Arum’s hand into his own and worrying over the minuscule injury.

“Oh I am so- oh, forgive me, I should know better than to distract you-”

“It’s nothing, honeysuckle.” Arum takes advantage of Damien’s fretting to pull him closer, closing his clawed hand carefully around Damien’s wrist. “Why does any of this upset you, honeysuckle? I would think you would be flattered to know that Amaryllis and yourself have had a… how did you put it… a quite singular effect upon me.”

“But the idea of you alone, Arum-” Damien looks up, his voice trembling and his eyes bright. “It breaks my heart to think of you without anyone to keep you warm, my lily, without anyone to love you as you deserve-”

Arum looks aside with a sigh. “My nature does not lend itself to unnecessary risk-taking, honeysuckle. I do not hold others close… doing so makes it much easier for them to hurt you. I had the Keep, and the Keep had me. It was enough. I feel… differently, now, but at the time, I did not even consider any alternative. It was enough.”

Damien’s other hand touches his cheek, just gently, and tilts Arum’s head back so their eyes meet again. “I am so sorry, my lily. You deserve- you deserve every care, every comfort, every affection- I cannot bear to think of you and the Keep alone, the both of you deserve companionship and adoration and safety therein and- oh, I love you too dearly to contemplate your loneliness in the time before-”

“No point getting worked up about the past,” Rilla says mildly, leaning out from a portal a few feet away, and Damien and Arum both jolt in surprise. “Sorry,” she says with a grin, “didn’t mean to sneak up on you, but the Keep seems to think you could do with a little interruption.”

Arum shoots a scowl in the vague direction of the entire structure, his metaphorical hackles and his literal frill raised, but Damien gives a relieved sort of laugh and reaches towards Rilla until she comes close enough for him to take her hand.

“Oh, Rilla, my darling flower-”

“The two of you get _so_ dramatic whenever I’m not in the room, I swear,” Rilla teases, and Arum’s scowl deepens until she leans up to kiss his cheek.

“Besides,” Arum says with a sigh, “I already _told_ you, honeysuckle, the Keep and I were _fine_. We were not lonely.”

The Keep gives a very, very gentle warble.

“We were _not_,” Arum insists, and Rilla’s eyebrows shoot up.

“Oh, no, you were _definitely_ lonely,” she says, patting his arm sympathetically as he growls, “but that doesn’t mean that getting upset about it _now_ is useful.”

“But-” Damien starts, “but I cannot bear the thought-”

“You don’t have to bear anything,” Rilla says. “I know regret is hard for you, Damien, but whatever Arum’s life was like before us? It’s not something you can change. All we can do is be here _now_.” She smiles, less sly and more earnest than usual, and leans down to give Damien a quick soft kiss. “And I don’t think either of us intend to let Arum or the Keep be lonely ever again.”

“_Now_ who is being dramatic?” Arum grumbles, looking away and snapping his teeth in his discomfort, but then Damien is twining his arms around him, embracing him rather snugly, and Arum can’t exactly ignore-

“Our dear Rilla is right-”

“As _usual_,” Arum interrupts.

“As usual,” Damien agrees, and his voice is bright with determination. “So I believe that the best course of action is clearly to redouble my efforts.”

Arum blinks, then looks down at his poet in confusion, noting with some alarm the way that Rilla is hiding a wide grin behind her hand. “Your… efforts, honeysuckle?”

“To absolutely spoil you with love, my lily.”

Arum’s frill flares again, surprise and delight and embarrassment all tangled together in his reaction, and Damien cups his face in both hands as he goes up on his toes to kiss him, gentle and indulgent.

“So much time to make up for,” Damien sighs against his scales, close enough that Arum can feel him smiling before he kisses Arum again. “Mm, so much love to catch up on, my precious lily. I intend to combine forces with our dear herbalist to overwhelm you with such-” another kiss, “_attentive_ affection, such-” another, “_devoted_ doting, such-” yet another, so sincerely sweet that Arum’s scales tingle, “_careful_ caressing that you shall never fear to be vulnerable with us, that you will forget that you ever even _knew_ what it was to be lonely.”

“Sounds like a pretty solid plan to me,” Rilla says, putting her hand over Damien’s on Arum’s cheek and smiling in a way that makes Arum’s racing heart stumble.

“I-”

Arum doesn’t know how to speak, with the both of them looking at him so intensely, with such undeniable feeling in their eyes. Doesn’t know how to speak with so much answering emotion howling in his own heart. How do they do this? How can they turn such an ordinary day, an ordinary moment, into something that feels like it could consume him?

“You-” he exhales roughly, but his humans are patient with him. “You need not… need not spoil me, for me to feel that way. When you are with me…” he pauses again, pulls Amaryllis closer so he can nuzzle the both of them at the same time, so he can close his eyes in embrace and let his words come softer, easier. “When you are with me… I can hardly remember that I was ever alone.”


End file.
